Safety in Museums and Galleries

Book excerpt: Safety in Museums and Galleries is Special Supplement to The International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship and it was originally conceived as the ""Proceedings of the Safety in Museums Meeting."" Its content is based on the meeting organized in 1985 by the Museums Association (United Kingdom), the International Institute for Conservation (IIC), and the British Museum (Natural History) to review the state of play regarding both approaches to occupational safety in museums. This book is organized into four main sections. The first section provides an overview of the legal and administrative background and discusses the developments in safety legislation in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s. The second section discusses the particular experiences met by conservators in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The third section deals with the basic elements of hazard recognition and control. The final section covers access to health and safety information and approaches to safety training by professional organizations. This book will be of interest to museum curators and others interested in museum safety.